NGT Imposes ₹6.45 Crore Penalty on Pune Township for Violating Environmental Clearance Norms
The National Green Tribunal (NGT), Western Zone Bench, has directed the township project of the prominent developer Nyati Group in Undri to pay ₹6.45 crore as Environmental Damage Compensation (EDC) for undertaking large-scale construction without obtaining mandatory environmental clearance (EC).
The order was delivered on Monday by a bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh and expert member Vijay Kulkarni. At the core of the case was whether the residential complex, spread across several survey numbers and phases, constituted one integrated township or a cluster of independent projects.
Applicant Tanaji Gambhire, a resident of Pune, argued that the development functioned as a single township with common infrastructure and shared amenities. By presenting it in phases and obtaining separate permissions, the developer sought to bypass the EIA Notification, 2006, which requires prior EC for projects exceeding 20,000 sq m of built-up area.
The tribunal upheld the contention. In its 35-page order, it recorded that the township comprised 19 buildings—including residential towers, a commercial block, a clubhouse, and amenity structures—spread over more than 50,000 sq m of constructed area. Taken together, the project’s built-up area exceeded 78,000 sq m, well above the clearance threshold.
The NGT noted that while the promoter had applied for an EC in 2012 for the entire township, subsequent phase-wise sanctions from the collector and later the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) portrayed each phase as below 20,000 sq m. “This was a deliberate attempt to evade the law,” the bench observed.
The order also pointed to sale deeds granting flat buyers common access to facilities such as clubhouses, swimming pools, gyms, children’s play areas, and landscaped gardens. Cooperative housing societies were contractually bound to share maintenance costs, reinforcing that the development was a single integrated project.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Goel Ganga Developers vs Union of India, the tribunal pegged the project’s construction cost at ₹129 crore and imposed 5% of it as compensation.
The tribunal directed the promoter to deposit ₹6.45 crore with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) within two months. The MPCB must use the funds for environmental improvement within a five-km radius of the project within six months and submit a compliance report to the tribunal.
“The order is factually incorrect, and we will be appealing before the higher authorities. The Nyati Group has complied with all regulations, and our projects have been developed in phases with separate land parcels, access points, and services. The fact that these projects share a common name does not make them a single project. They are distinct in size and scope, and no norms have been violated,” said Harish Shroff, director, sales and marketing, Nyati Group.
On August 27, a developer was fined ₹1.7 crore for violations in a residential project on Katraj–Kondhwa Road. Less than two weeks later, on September 5, another builder was fined ₹2.55 crore for irregularities in a Pimpri-Chinchwad township.
